<-------------------------------------------------------------------------Rscript
For our mid-term I focused on the two feeling thermometers bigbiz (refereed to as Big Biz below), and workclass (working class). I also looked at righttrack because it give an idea of the general feeling from 2008. In my analysis of the data I found Big Biz, while not a positive as working class, was still in favor with the majority of people. Working class had a very high average response. Both had large standard deviations (Big Biz - 16.52 and Working Class - 22.58) meaning the average data point is far from the mean (The histograms and density plots blow show the outliers that cause this). After wrestling with R to get this data analysed I looked at the question from the survey righttrack, to me it reflected 2008 perfectly - everyone was fed up - and as I began to think about it the feeling thermometers for bigbiz and workclass did as well. 08 to present Big Biz has developed a more negative connotation as the image of the working man and the working class has again become Americana's mascot/poster child or what have you. If campaign ads are any indicator the candidates this year have been informed; both have been playing up the working class. (This is great as an interesting speculation but the data does not demonstrate any of these claims! But it's very good you're trying to draw hypotheses from the data!)
Summary Statics
Minimum
Median
Mean
Max
NA's
Standard Deviation
Big Biz
0
50
55.27
100
259
16.52
Working Class
1
85
83.97
100
236
22.58
Is our Government on the right track?
Yes
No
209
2063
NA's 50
This is simply the number of total yes and no votes. I added this to my page to relate what the feeling thermometers (of Big Biz and Working Class) show us to the way people think about the government in 2008.
BOX/VIOLIN PLOTS, HISTOGRAM AND KERNEL DENSITY:
To show measurements of central tendency box and violin graphs illustrate where the outliers and bulk of data are. In the Box/Violin graphs I compared the Big Biz and Working Class feeling thermometers. The graphs show that people in 2008 felt better about the working class than big busyness; each graph gives an idea of what the mean is and shows the minimum and maximum result, this shows what the numbers may hide. By placing the data in graph form we can see that using mean may not give the best average for these feeling thermometers due to outliers that could be pulling the data down. The table above shows us in these graphs the mean and median of both are not far off but for working class it may be more accurate to use median. The Histogram, and kernel density plots located to the right give use another way to view the data. These graphs focus on frequency distrabution, generating class intervals and breaking the scores down into them (Salkind 51). All four of these show the data and give an idea where the average is.In this case the working class (in 2008) was favored over big busyness. The data for the graphs above is from the National Election Survey in 2008, understanding this helps the graphs make sense pointing to the looming recession, in 2008, as why the working class had more positive feeling during the survey.
SCATTER PLOT:
This scatter plot shows the correlation between Big Biz and the Working Class. The correlation between them is 0.1970637. According to Salkind (author of Statics For People Who Think They Hate Statics) 0.0-0.2 means "weak or no relationship (Salkind 88). Based off this Big Biz and Working Class have little to no correlation. This probable deals with the fact those in favor of the working class are not necessarily positive about Big busyness and vice versa.
Summary:
This data reflects what started in the 2008 political campaign started, and what boiled in to the street last year through the Occupy moments, a move a way from big busyness. Our country as the data shows has cooled on big busyness and seems to want to move back to work not just paper pushing but industrial jobs. Whether the "dog" is heading the right direction or not is still up in the air for 2012.
This is a very good job. I like that you worked closely from the book and in that way you were very precise, pointing out the difference between means and medians and other similar distinctions. You also clearly put a lot of work into this. So great job. The only things I would say are: pay more attention to little things like spelling and grammar (these things will matter in your life!) and don't get too far ahead of the data. You are generating hypotheses or guesses about what might be going on in the world--- in your concluding summary for instance--but you have to be more clever and use different techniques to really see if those things are going on! This data so far only gives you very general pictures. So in the future stay as precise and "by the books" as you are here, and don't lose your speculative vision, but hold yourself to evaluating only exactly what you're able to make the data say! Sound good?
Will Steinbach
Rscript -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
For our mid-term I focused on the two feeling thermometers bigbiz (refereed to as Big Biz below), and workclass (working class). I also looked at righttrack because it give an idea of the general feeling from 2008. In my analysis of the data I found Big Biz, while not a positive as working class, was still in favor with the majority of people. Working class had a very high average response. Both had large standard deviations (Big Biz - 16.52 and Working Class - 22.58) meaning the average data point is far from the mean (The histograms and density plots blow show the outliers that cause this). After wrestling with R to get this data analysed I looked at the question from the survey righttrack, to me it reflected 2008 perfectly - everyone was fed up - and as I began to think about it the feeling thermometers for bigbiz and workclass did as well. 08 to present Big Biz has developed a more negative connotation as the image of the working man and the working class has again become Americana's mascot/poster child or what have you. If campaign ads are any indicator the candidates this year have been informed; both have been playing up the working class.
(This is great as an interesting speculation but the data does not demonstrate any of these claims! But it's very good you're trying to draw hypotheses from the data!)
BOX/VIOLIN PLOTS, HISTOGRAM AND KERNEL DENSITY:
To show measurements of central tendency box and violin graphs illustrate where the outliers and bulk of data are. In the Box/Violin graphs I compared the Big Biz and Working Class feeling thermometers. The graphs show that people in 2008 felt better about the working class than big busyness; each graph gives an idea of what the mean is and shows the minimum and maximum result, this shows what the numbers may hide. By placing the data in graph form we can see that using mean may not give the best average for these feeling thermometers due to outliers that could be pulling the data down. The table above shows us in these graphs the mean and median of both are not far off but for working class it may be more accurate to use median. The Histogram, and kernel density plots located to the right give use another way to view the data. These graphs focus on frequency distrabution, generating class intervals and breaking the scores down into them (Salkind 51). All four of these show the data and give an idea where the average is.In this case the working class (in 2008) was favored over big busyness. The data for the graphs above is from the National Election Survey in 2008, understanding this helps the graphs make sense pointing to the looming recession, in 2008, as why the working class had more positive feeling during the survey.
SCATTER PLOT:
This scatter plot shows the correlation between Big Biz and the Working Class. The correlation between them is 0.1970637. According to Salkind (author of Statics For People Who Think They Hate Statics) 0.0-0.2 means "weak or no relationship (Salkind 88). Based off this Big Biz and Working Class have little to no correlation. This probable deals with the fact those in favor of the working class are not necessarily positive about Big busyness and vice versa.
Summary:
This data reflects what started in the 2008 political campaign started, and what boiled in to the street last year through the Occupy moments, a move a way from big busyness. Our country as the data shows has cooled on big busyness and seems to want to move back to work not just paper pushing but industrial jobs. Whether the "dog" is heading the right direction or not is still up in the air for 2012.
This is a very good job. I like that you worked closely from the book and in that way you were very precise, pointing out the difference between means and medians and other similar distinctions. You also clearly put a lot of work into this. So great job. The only things I would say are: pay more attention to little things like spelling and grammar (these things will matter in your life!) and don't get too far ahead of the data. You are generating hypotheses or guesses about what might be going on in the world--- in your concluding summary for instance--but you have to be more clever and use different techniques to really see if those things are going on! This data so far only gives you very general pictures. So in the future stay as precise and "by the books" as you are here, and don't lose your speculative vision, but hold yourself to evaluating only exactly what you're able to make the data say! Sound good?